Army of the Dead proves that Zack Snyder only really has one idea of his own when it comes to keeping "zombie stuff" from getting stale after more than five decades.
Luckily, it also proves that he can build out from it fairly well.
When Snyder first broke onto the directing scene with the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, one of the popular criticisms of the otherwise-lauded film was how it seemed to ignore nearly all of the socio-political subtext (and outright text) of Romero's approach to zombie horror. With this new film, written by Snyder along with Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum) and Joby Harold (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword), the kinetic genre director seems eager to make up for lost time.
To. . . mixed but wildly engaging results.
Army of the Dead takes place a few years after the city of Los Vegas has been lost to a sudden zombie outbreak that leaves an undead horde trapped behind a barrier of shipping containers, and the city's survivors living as refugees in a tent city outside the Vegas walls (see what I mean?). Dave Bautista is our anchor point as Scott Ward, a former special forces soldier who helped evacuate the city and has now been asked by the enigmatic Mr. Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to put together a team to recover two hundred million dollars from one of the zombie-invested casino vaults.
A zombie heist movie is a damn fine idea, and Snyder whips through both a dynamite "chronicling the fall" opening credits sequence and a delightful "putting the team together" montage with aplomb. Aside from Ana, the requisite BFF/2nd in command (Ana de la Reguera) and brother-in-arms Vanderhoe (a circular saw-wielding Omari Hardwick), Ward - and therefore, the audience - get introduced to a memorable band of thieves including a jumpy safe-cracker (Matthias Schweighofer), a mercenary guide (Nora Arnezeder), and Tig Notaro as a delightfully sardonic helicopter pilot. But wait, there's more! Is there a shady security liaison with A Mysterious Agenda? But of course. Do we have zombie-hunting YouTube influencers? Why wouldn't we? Is there an early first-act complication where Ward's estranged daughter (Ella Purnell), who's been helping out in the refugee camps, ends up unexpectedly tagging along on the mission? Damn right there is, and that's before we even get to the zombie tiger.
Oh yeah, there's a zombie tiger. Snyder plants that kitty early with confidence and makes sure you know there's an awesome payoff coming, and boy howdy does he deliver.
If the middle (and about half the ending) were as strong as the opening 40 minutes or so, this might be in contention for one of the modern zombie bangers alongside Train to Busan or Little Monsters. Unfortunately, there's just a bit too much that Snyder tries to stuff in and stretch out between "we made it inside the city and there's A Big Complication" and "GET TO THE CHOPPER!" Most of the scenes where the colorful characters butt heads or trade fist bumps are gold (the dynamic between Vanderhoe and Dieter the safecracker is exactly my flavor of meathead pulp goodness), and Snyder definitely delivers on the action front. Unfortunately, his focus is all over the place.
And I'm not just talking about him acting as his own DP and shooting half the film like he just discovered shallow focus and is being real cute about it (but it's really up there with the dutch angles in the first Thor in terms of "going past 11"). Whenever the focus is on the propulsive "we have to get the money before the government nukes the city" ticking clock or the genuinely solid father/daughter dynamic that Bautista and Purnell play (Bautista really is proving to be a hell of a talent), it's cooking with gas. But as effective as Snyder's ideas for building on his approach to the undead, iterating on the fast zombies from his own Dawn and combining some of Romero's evolutionary ideas from Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead, he takes a few too many detours to really nail all the big moments. Several scenes go on far longer than they really need to, and it probably has a couple too many characters. There's also some obvious stitching together of different edits, and the movie at times seems more interested in setting up another story in its own Zombie Vegas Cinematic Universe than in actually wrapping up the story at hand (and entire character who's pivotal to the stakes of the film straight-up disappears during the finale).
But as much as huge chunks of the film spin out when they should be roaring down the track, there's a commitment to the bit (for all the bits, including the ones covered in arterial spray) that I can't help but admire. Like an ill-advised night on the Vegas Strip, Army of the Dead is a bender that's probably too long and loud for its own good, but unforgettable all the same.
(Army of the Dead is at CineMark theaters and hits Netflix on Friday, May 21st.)
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